The "Red" Carpet Roll Out

Day Two: Is this the official start of the Oscars?

This man was removing a plastic cover from an Oscar decoration before the carpet roll-out

In all the preparation for the Oscars, Wednesday before the Sunday awards ceremony is the day for the ceremonial rolling out of the red carpet. In my six drawing this over the years, I still find it a delightfully silly event.

The first year I attended, about 15 journalists attended and photographed/videoed the actual rolling out of the carpet. Today, there seemed to be about fifty! It was a bit of a madhouse, to be honest. This year was different in that for the first time (in my experience), a few remarks given by the CEO of the Academy, Bill Kramer, the President of the Academy, Janet Yang, and this year’s host, Jimmy Kimmel.

The media was poised:

And it began! Two carpets were unfurled and photographers and vidiographers ran backwards as the carpet was pushed towards them. It all lasted about five minutes.

It was very funny.

And yes, your eyes don’t deceive you, and I did not color it wrong: it was not a red carpet! I was told by the head of all things Red Carpet at the Oscars, Lauren Selman, that making the carpet a color called “Bermuda” was a design choice by the Red Carpet designer Lisa Love.

I wonder if the choice of color is more than simply a design element. Yes, combined with the rich red drapes, it is quite beautiful. But “red carpet” somehow connotes elite-ness; I wonder if the Academy is seeking to move away from that. For sure, they probably want to rebrand the awards show because of real issues and image problems in recent years.

I hope they can. The movies deserve it.

More tomorrow!